A senior Conservative MP has said "it is truly shocking" that Britain helped the United States to kidnap and torture British detainees, as he warned that the Government would come to regret its decision not to allow an independent judge-led inquiry to run its course.

Andrew Tyrie said today's confirmation by Cabinet Office minister Ken Clarke that the investigation would instead be handed over to Parliament's controversial Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) was "a mistake".

It is truly shocking that Britain has facilitated kidnap and torture. And the decision to end, to abandon this judge-led inquiry will, I think, come to be seen as a mistake.

What confidence can the public have in their conclusions when that same body wrongly concluded that Britain was not involved in 2007 only to be flatly contradicted by a High Court written ruling the following year?

Lord Mandelson served as Trade Commissioner to the EU for four years and was Business Secretary between 2009 and 2010. Credit: PA

Former Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said: "If Britain quit the EU, amongst the losers would be businesses foregoing trade and investment opportunities, their employees whose jobs and workplace rights would be at risk, the police and security agencies who would sacrifice vital collaboration."

"The British people would lose the freedom to travel, live and work as they wish across Europe," he continued.

"In return we would get the dubious satisfaction of standing alone in the world."

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The former chancellor Ken Clarke has told ITV News that the party needs to 'move on and focus on the result of the referendum'.

The Minister without Portfolio said that the draft legislation being bought out by his party 'underlined the commitment that David Cameron was making to holding a referendum'.

He added that the most 'important thing is to make sure we get the right result from a referendum that's held to avoid the catastrophe to the countries economy and our political standing in the world. If we were to be so very very reckless as to leave the European Union.'

Speaking on Sky News' Murnaghan programme, Mr Clarke said, "It is certainly the case when it comes to a bus pass and when it comes to the winter fuel all taxpayers should decide and recipients should decide what to do with it themselves".

"You can't hand it back to the Government. I don't think it is a system for doing that. Every pensioner and retired person like myself has to make up their own mind about whether they really need it and whether they are going to give it to some worthwhile cause", he continued.

"No doubt most pensioners who are reasonably prosperous give quite a lot of money to charity and worthwhile causes in any event".

Until now the backroom deliberations within the Conservative party over the Falklands have remained largely private but the notes are among those released by the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust as it opens its files from a year which came to define Lady Thatcher's career.

They range from Ken Clarke, then a junior minister, arguing to "blow up a few ships but nothing more" to West Devon MP Peter Mills who warned "my constituents want blood".

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher pictured in 1982 Credit: PA/PA Wire

On April 6, four days after the incursion, the Chief Whip, Michael Jopling, prepared a note for the Prime Minister saying: "You may like to have general re-action to events in the Falkland Islands."